They're Trouble
by fragrantfields
Summary: Before the attack, before Zak's fateful flight, Kara shares her concerns over a drink or six with a guy who seems to understand her dilemma...maybe too well. A possible explanation for why Saul Tigh and Kara Thrace were at each other's throats from the mini-series on.


Summary: Before the attack, before Zak's fateful flight, Kara shares her concerns over a drink or six with a guy who seems to understand her dilemma...maybe too well. A possible explanation for why Saul Tigh and Kara Thrace were at each other's throats from the mini-series on

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_"No attorneys / To plead my case / No opiates / To send me into outta space"_

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If she had to think about it later, if she was asked about it, she'd have to say she still didn't quite know why. He was an old guy, too old for her if she'd been looking, which she hadn't been, and he was miserable-looking to boot.

Maybe it was like calling to like. She wasn't doing so hot herself. And he had a faint air of Viper pilot about him…muted under his years and stodgy clothes, but if there was one thing Kara Thrace could do, it was sniff out Viper jockeys.

She was trying to ignore that trait these days.

"Hey, this seat taken?" She watched his eyes light up just a flicker, dying down immediately. He'd been hoping for someone else, it looked like.

"Help yourself." He finished off the shot in his hand and waved for another. "What's your story, sweetheart? Haven't seen you in here before."

She groaned. "Is that supposed to be your opening shot?"

"Don't flatter yourself. Just making conversation." He gestured for the bartender to pour a shot for Kara.

She wasn't going to turn down free booze…her pay packet was three days away and she had a lot she'd like to drink off her mind tonight. He looked harmless enough. Or at least manageable.

"I teach. Over at the academy." She sipped at the brown liquor. Not bad. It was a cut above what she usually drank.

"You don't look like any teacher I know." He swiveled his stool towards her and gave her a thorough onceover. She couldn't decide if his grin was wolfish or just creepy.

Kara hadn't planned on doing much talking tonight, but she couldn't let that remark stand. And he showed a decently filled wallet when he paid for the drinks. This could be fun…drink for free, talk shit with someone she'd never see again, then go home and try not to dream about Zak.

"I'm a flight instructor, actually."

"Yeah?" The smarmy air around the guy vanished, and he looked at her with a little more respect, like he could see something under the low-cut sweater and paint-dotted jeans other than tits and ass.

"What's your favorite ride?" His question led to an hour-long discussion of the virtues and drawbacks of Viper models over the years. The bartender finally set the half-empty bottle between them and started running a tab.

This Saul guy was all right, she decided. Sounded like he'd been a hell of a pilot in his prime. One day, she'd be the one buying drinks for an up-and-coming pilot, regaling him or her with tales of daring and near-death mishaps and saves.

As the bottle's level dropped lower, Kara felt her mood darkening. This guy's stories of flying with his buddy were reminding her of what she didn't have—an equal to run with. Maybe it didn't matter…this guy and his buddy didn't do much flying anymore, it didn't sound like. He was glossing over what his job was now, going back again and again to her mother's war and the aftermath.

They'd started on the second bottle when she told him about Zak. Not by name, of course, but the conflict that had her looking for a quiet place to drink tonight.

"So, he knows the basics in his head, but he just…I dunno. He needs more experience, more time, more something."

Her new friend got a faraway look in his eyes. "My buddy…there was a time when anybody in their right mind would have given up on me, left me in the flophouse I'd sunk to. But he gave me a break." He blinked hard a couple of times and cleared his throat. "He got me back in the cockpit, and you know…something just clicked once I was back. Had a lot of good years after that. Got married, got promoted—" he broke off and looked down into his glass.

"Things aren't so hot right this minute, between me and the wife," he said, twisting his ring absently. "But one of us'll get tired of being apart, we'll hash it out and try again. We always do."

"But you're apart now?" Sadness welled up in her chest. When she got married, it'd be forever. None of this back and forth, on and off again shit.

The look he gave her held a lot more feeling than his words had carried. "Yeah. My wife…she gets these, I dunno, these needs…" He shook his head. "It's hard to explain."

Oh, frak, she didn't come here for this. His eyes were welling up and she figured a lot more words were, too. That was the thing about sharing feelings. People always started wanting more. She let a snippet of her mother's personality peek out.

"What's the problem, Saul? Can't get it up anymore?" She gave him a smirk she wasn't feeling, guilt pinching her at the look in his eyes.

"Frak, yes, I can still get it up. You come back to my place, I'll prove it. " He sounded surprised and angry. Good. She did better with "angry."

"Another great line." She slammed down the last of her drink. That should do it. Heart-to-heart time was over. He'd be happy to see her leave. Nothing was better than taking a shot at their sexual prowess for detaching quick.

"Thanks for the drinks," she said, slipping off the stool. "I'm probably gonna skip the relationship advice, though."

He was still glowering when she sauntered out of the bar, his grim expression reflected in the bar mirror.

She'd take the long way home tonight, try and work out what to do about Zak. She'd meant it when she said it, about skipping the relationship advice. As she walked, though, fragments came back to her, humming in her ear.

_He gave me a break._

He got me back in the cockpit—something just clicked.

Maybe the old guy's marriage was on the rocks, but he seemed to still be tight with his buddy, the guy who'd believed in him.

By the time she was unlocking her front door, she'd decided. Zak wasn't that bad, after all. He'd get a feel for flying. He just needed a little time to get the feel for flying she had. That Lee had.

Like this guy had had, at least at one time.

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* * *

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Kara had just stowed her gear and picked her rack when she saw him. He looked older than he'd looked at the bar. She thanked the Lords of Kobol Commander Adama wasn't around. She wasn't surprised when he shut the hatch behind him.

"You never said you were talking about Zak Adama," he growled, face flushed.

"So frakking what? You said—" that night came back like it'd been yesterday.

"That's 'so frakking what, _Sir,_' Lieutenant. And nobody gives a frak about what you_ think_ I did or didn't say."

"Your friend gave you a break when you needed it, _Sir_. And it fixed your frakked-up life, you said. _Sir_. That break got you back in a Viper, _Sir_." She gritted her teeth against everything she wanted to throw at him.

"I _belonged_ in a Godsdamn cockpit, Lieutenant. That's the difference. Bill knew I had the chops."

Oh, Gods. His friend, the one who pulled strings for him, was Zak's dad.

For a second she let herself hope that was a good sign. The Commander knew what it was like, then, to go out on a limb for someone you cared about. Maybe he'd understand, if she ever came clean. He'd gotten her on _Galactica_ after all. He—

His voice was low and biting. "Don't even think about it. Are you stupid, Thrace? His son won't talk to him, the boys' mother blames him…. The Old Man's got nobody but _Galactica_ and the men and women on her. He feels you had a hand in this, or that I did…you might as well take out your sidearm and put a bullet in his brain."

Her shoulders slumped before she caught herself and squared them XO was right.

"So I should just pretend we never had that conversation? Keep lying to him about what happened?"

"Godsdamn right. Use some frakking judgment, for once."

Kara's vision clouded red as she struggled with every impulse she had that told her to deck the son of a bitch. When it cleared, he was halfway through the hatch.

When she got in a brawl that night, it was Saul Tigh's face she saw every time she threw a punch. _One day, _she told herself, trying to pound away the guilt.

One day, she'd do it for real.

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End file.
